The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-12
vAssAR DAYS.
Something About a Thoroughly Equip.
ped Woman's College

Nassar in its glory. Robins in the grass,
the lnxuriance of early summer verdure
run riot, scholastic buildings, their dignity
set laughingly at naught BY the fiuttering
gowns that dance about them, endless
nnazes Of corridors ringing with fresh voices
sunshine and an exultant sense of the new
possibilities of womanhood have been
threads in the tangle of impressions that
commencement visitors to the girl family
at Poughkeepsie have brought away with
them this week
AS If it were not enough that Vassar was
the first thoroughly equipped wonefls
college in the world, the first institution ex-
pressly founded to do for young women
what hundreds of schools were doing for
Young men; for beauty of situation and
natural surroundings it is almost without
rival 1t seems matter to regret at first
that it should be so far from the river. The
two miles that one travels east through
Poughkeepsie and away from the Hudson
water to reach it seem two miles too many
But from the instant one passes under the
massive stone arch, with its great clock that
marks the limits of the zoo acres of the
college grounds, regrets of all sorts are lost
in the delight of the eye, wearied with the
city pavements in the gently rising ground,
the June greenness, the fine old trees, the
stately brick piles modelled, they say, after
the design Of the Tuileries and masking the
American newness of their walls that count
q quarter of century or so, but are the
veriest infants as universities count age,
under a mantle of woodbines and ivy
With the flash of oars from the boats manned
by girllsh crews on the lake, the glimpses of
bright faces down every avenue and the
electricity of 800 young women who are in
earnest in the air NasSar Ill June is an ex-
hilarating place, to say the least.
~ tba Loo 4o
mon in the fiower-decked chapel on Sunday,
at the annual concert, the alternately
merry and fearful clasSday exercises round
the tree sacred to '87, Prof. Mitchell's dome
party under the great telescope, or when
the valedictorian had made her last bow and
the heap of parchments was produced, it
was impossible not to agree that Vassar
students, take them together are very
pleasant to look at. Any group of girls at
their blossoming period is not apt to be
precisely disagreeable in aspect, but take
body of picked young women with intelli-
gence in their features and the character
that will carry them through four years of
more or less steady mental training, and
the faces they will turn to you make a
picture brighter and more attractive than
1t would be easy to find elsewhere. It, as the
statistics of the collegiate alumnae have it,
only % per cent. of the girl graduates of the
educational colleges on their list are mar
ried, and only % per cent of the graduates
Of the women's colleges it is of a certainty
not due to any lack of the winsomeness or
feminine charms.
Vassar girls are apt to be pretty and
almost without exception they like pretty
things. The students rooms, as thrown
open to commencement guests this week,
gave one glimpseS of coy interiors, where
the Greek grammar on the bookshelf was
overhung by spray Of nodding june roses
from the dainty flower vase above it, where
the big lexicon on the floor lay comfortably
on warm-hued rug, where good pictures
frightened the walls, runeing vines climbed
about in the window seats and color bits
and girls l1nickknacks were everywhere.
The senior parlors, fitted up afresh by each
succeeding class for its own especial use and
delectation, afford another instance, if
instance were wanted, of the love of the
beautiful in home decoration which no
amount of higher education could ever
strangle in a true daughter of Eve. With
their silk hung walls, their waving curtains
and dropping portieres, their rare etchings
and quaint odd bric-a-brac, the only pity was
that the reign of each new setof plenishings
should be SO brief.
Vassar girls, like the rest of femininity,
like to talk and the cheerful din between
courses in the big, sunny dining room, when
freshmen, sophomores Juniors and seniors,
nne and all, found their merry tongues
loosened was something no visitor who
heard it is likely to forget. Why does
everybody chat fastest when eating ice
cream? Wednesday has been ice cream day
at Eassar from time to time immemorlal
and Wednesday dinners in the annals of the
dining room stand out prominently at high
water mark.
The graduates in particular have had
something to talk about this week, and it
was impossible not to notice throughout the
commencement days how full of plans for
the future the wide awake class of 81 is.
The Vassar girl is not quite the sort of
young woman she is currently pictured in
newspaper literature. She is not in any
sense rampant Her zeal for the good name
of her college and her almost morbid dread
of doing anything or saying anything or
looking anything to bring discredit on it
makes her in many ways a far more con
sentative and self-restrained individual
than she will be in a half-dozen years may
hap, when the sharp edges of her education
have little worn off But in spite of this
seltconsciousness that acts as check to keep
her from any unless it be very well con-
Sidered unconventional plunge the Vassar
girl has not the smallest notion of going
home, folding her hands and swinging in a
hammock until her destiny in the shape OF
an eligible young man turns up. There is
hardly a girl among the graduates of this
week who laid away the keepsakes Of her
college life in her trunk without matured
plan for work that she took home with them.
Circulating among the seniors as they
gathered in knots for farewell talk in the
Railways, the library or the long tree-shaded
avenues one heard of this young woman
who would teach, that one who was
going abroad to study, another who
wanted to be journalist, several-more
perhaps than thought of any other profess
sion--who would be physicians, and yet
others who were interested in social
questions The age of the average college
graduate is rising little and at % or % the
Vassar girl turns an earnest, though not too
serious, eye upon the world.
One of the most vivid impressions which
the visitor brings away from VaSsar is that
of the democracy of the place. Society
divides itself into classes inevitably every
where, but neither money nor social station
have any appreciate weightin determining
your standing at Vassar. A larger proper
ton of the students than at most other
womens colleges probably come from
wealthy families, but year after year 1t
happens that the most courted student is
one Of those who hold free scholarships
Dollars don't count, gowns don't count, but
as the college world arranges itself, two
things fix your place for you, your BRAINS
aud your capacity for good fellowship
YOilr uOrilluI. Girls are yOllr bright glrlS